Chew Toy or Teether?
How the pet industry and the baby industry are merging.
by Andrew Adam Newman
February 5, 2007
In 2004, she founded Petlane, a pet line. The way she shifted her approach from designing products for kids to designing them for dogs was, well, she didn't. "Dogs are like a two-year-old baby in terms of their development," Nemeth says. "They stay focused for about as long as a two-year-old. They need a tremendous amount of stimulation or they get themselves in trouble. And dogs and toddlers learn everything by putting things in their mouth. With toddlers I was really conscious of fabrics and textures."
One Petlane toy called a Sensory Star is made of soft fabric, and each of its five points has a different feature, including a rattle, squeak, and chewable heavy foam. "Dogs go berserk," Nemeth says. "I've had to change my technology so things are very much sturdier than the children's toys, but other than that I'm using very much the same thinking. A dog's a fur child."
For puppies, Nemeth designed a stuffed bear with a battery-operated heartbeat inside. "So it sounds exactly like mom," she says. "Dogs 
"Dogs are like a two-year-old baby in terms of their development."carry them around the house and they lie on them, just like a kid carries a blanket around."
Like her old company, Petlane products are sold at house parties, although these are called — the pet industry never met a pun it didn't like — "pet pawties." If it all seems over-the-top, then Nemeth thinks you're missing the point. "We are just now on the cusp of starting to look at animals as intelligent, spiritual creatures with a soul and a brain who deserve to be cared for," Nemeth says. "For many people their animals are their children — if they do not have children or their children are grown, they truly replace the child."
Still, Nemeth's strongest argument may be less maternal than monetary. "The spend on pet toys as far as we can see is greater than people spend on kids, because with kids you have to buy all these other things," Nemeth says. Plus, besides not having to trifle with violin lessons and college funds, pet owners might be customers for longer than parents. "When a dog does die, you're likely to replace it, and you don't replace your children."
Bamboo was launched in 2004 by a company that has been in the baby business for sixteen years, Munchkin. Bamboo's trademarked motto: "Pets are kids, too!" Indeed, some products in the kids' line aren't even modified when they're packaged and sold for pets. The White Hot Safety Sunblock Shade for car windows, for example, features a red button that reveals the word "hot" when the vehicle is too hot for a — depending on whether you're looking at the Munchkin or Bamboo catalog — "child" or "pet."
Both lines also have teething blankets — Munchkins' has four textured corners to chew on while Bamboo has a nylon bone attached to one end. (The Munchkins' catalog has three photos of babies with products in their mouths; the Bamboo catalog has only one photo of a dog gnawing.) Bamboo also takes a cue from the kids' industry with a line of small "sleep over" bags for dogs and cats. "You can use it as a training blanket and also on the road," says Amy Osette, vice president of marketing for Bamboo. "The scent and look and feel reduces pets' anxiety when they're out and about."
Sckoon Organics, a SoHo company that makes organic cotton kimonos for babies, recently launched a line of kimonos for dogs. Satoko Asai, the company's designer, says organic cotton suits dogs with skin allergies. Kimonos are "easy to put on and take off for babies and the same logic goes for dogs, too," Asai says.
©2007 Andrew Adam Newman and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Andrew Adam Newman is a frequent contributor to The New York Times.
His work has appeared in Salon and on National Public Radio's
Studio
360 with Kurt Andersen. He lives in New York. See more at
andrewadamnewman.com. |
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